This week marks the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, which
led to the revelation that the genetic material that encodes all life takes
the shape of two twisted strands connected by chemical threads.
Three back-to-back articles on the structure of DNA were written by several
now-famous household names. Rosalind Franklin, a scientist, was one of them.
Rosalind Franklin passed away from ovarian cancer shortly after, denying her
the opportunity to enjoy her accomplishments or see them properly
acknowledged.
Instead, James Watson and Francis Crick would later publish best-selling
books, share the Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins, and give extensive
interviews about how they used information from the now-famous photograph
known as
Photograph 51
to piece together the structure of DNA.
The dispersion of fuzzy dots in the image was created by X-rays that were
refracted by the molecular structure of DNA. The image was taken by Raymond
Gosling, a pupil Wilkins temporarily gave the chemist, and it wasn't much
without Franklin's professional analysis.
The extent to which Franklin's skilled eye influenced the course of
discovery has been up for debate ever since.
Now, two scientists researching Watson and Crick's histories have found
further information concerning Franklin's role in the discovery of DNA's
double helix in a forgotten letter and an unreleased news story from the
1950s.
"Together, these documents suggest a different account of the discovery of
the double helix,"
write
naturalist Matthew Cobb and medical historian Nathaniel Comfort in a
commentary commemorating the anniversary of the 1953 Nature publications.
Franklin well understood how DNA is structured. She contributed equally to
finding a solution.
Cobb and Comfort combed through a collection of Franklin's notes to piece
together her thoughts, illustrating how the former Marie Curie student
created many more works than the one for which she is most known.
Franklin measured her X-ray diffraction pictures carefully and recorded her
findings in an informal report. When the observations reached Watson and
Crick, they utilized them to support their theoretical model of DNA without
getting their consent.
Franklin had earlier said in her 1951 lecture notes that the molecule is a
"big helix with several chains, phosphates on outside, phosphate-phosphate
interhelical bonds, disrupted by water," a seminar Watson attended and
carelessly ignored.
Cobb and Comfort use the recently discovered documents to make a somewhat
different case than Watson and Crick, who undoubtedly demonstrated a casual
disdain for other people's labor by using facts to support their beliefs
about the structure of DNA and only acknowledging contributions after the
fact.
Franklin wasn't some naive outsider taking the easy way out. Two teams that
often cross-checked their work, to use a charitable interpretation, were
responsible for the discovery of the structure of DNA.
In an unpublished story she authored with Franklin, writer Joan Bruce
stated, "They linked up, occasionally verifying each other's work or
grappling with a shared issue."
Cobb and Comfort's revision of the story makes an effort to portray
Franklin as "an equal member of a quartet who solved the double helix," but
it also illustrates what occurs when one person's popular account of the
facts takes momentum while specifics from technical journals are left to
stalemate.
In their best-selling 1968 book, The Double Helix, Cobb and Comfort claim
that Watson twisted reality by portraying the day he first viewed Photograph
51 as a typical "eureka moment" that readers could relate to.
Cobb and Comfort believe that this narrative—that Watson could see at a
glance what Franklin had missed for months—is frequently "unwittingly"
supported by Franklin's supporters and distorts Franklin's accomplishments.
It appears that Franklin, a knowledgeable scientist, was unable to
comprehend his own data, in contrast to him, a rookie crystallographer, who
understood it right away.
Cobb and Comfort
claim
that in a 1954 study, Watson and Crick made an attempt to "set the record
straight" by admitting that "the formulation of our structure would have
been most unlikely, if not impossible," in the absence of Franklin's
evidence. It's impossible to tell if it reads as a quick admission of guilt
or as praise for their peer's diligence; possibly both are true.
Cobb and Comfort
contend
that Franklin was "beaten to the answer" of DNA's fascinating double helix
for a few reasons that reflect the prejudice she encountered as a woman in
science, despite the fact that history shows Franklin as an equal
contribution to our understanding of DNA.
Franklin worked "on her own without a peer with whom to exchange ideas"
outside her graduate student. She was also left out of the casual
conversations in which Watson and Crick participated.
Before developing any theories of how DNA fits together, Franklin insisted
on gathering and thoroughly studying her X-ray diffraction data. Her and
Gosling's 1953 work was only included in Nature with the other two after
Franklin
formally requested its publication.
Of course, it still holds that Wilkins, without Franklin's knowledge or
consent, sent Watson the legendary Photograph 51, a very sharp photograph of
DNA as it appears inside aqueous cells.
Cobb and Comfort
argue
that Franklin should be remembered as a bright scientist in her own right
who condensed two lifetimes' worth of knowledge into a single work, rather
than as someone who overlooked the importance of her X-ray crystallographic
photos.
Cobb and Comfort
write, "Getting Franklin's story right is crucial because she has become a role
model for women entering science." She was up against more subtle kinds of
sexism inherent in science, some of which are still present now, in addition
to the overt ones of the time.
The commentary was published in
Nature.
